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Monday, 28 July 2014

Nick Cave is a cussed chap. There’s a film about himcoming out next month which promises to be as close to its subject as Frank was to Chris Sievey, and all the better for it.

I think Henry’s Dream is Nick Cave’s best album. He, apparently, can’t stand it. Something to do with a falling out with the producer.

I was always wary of Nick Cave. There he was, at the JHQ Rheindahlen RAF record library, staring out at me from the cover of Your Funeral, My Trial and Kicking Against the Pricks, looking like he was perfectly willing to put a stack-heeled boot into my white, flabby belly for having the temerity to like, or perhaps, not like his music.

No, it said. Steer well clear. I did, until I read a review of Tender Prey, the album which supposedly announced his arrival as a major artist. Melody Maker, my bible, said it was beyond good, so I bought it. Then I bought his next album The Good Son, a blessed relief after the intensity of Tender Prey. Then came Henry’s Dream.

I wasn’t waiting on the release date of a new Nick Cave new album, but I knew something was due, and when I walked into the Andover Our Price to see a 12” single adorned with a live shot of that unmistakable mullet I was delighted. It was called I had a Dream, Joe. “I hope this is good”, I remember thinking, “I really hope this is good”.

It is. For any song to have the chance of becoming a classic, the music has to be right. Only when the setting is approaching brilliance do we start to pick apart the words, to see if the artist actually has anything to say. Terrible lyrics won’t necessarily limit the progress of a song, but good ones can help elevate it to a different level.

As a lyricist Nick Cave is in the same class as Shane MacGowan, Paul Simon and Alex Turner. He’s built a career mining a rich seam of violent, bible-belt gothic, and on this song everything comes together.

The title sets out the conceit - we are going to hear an interpretation of Mary’s first words to Joseph on waking from her dream of immaculate conception. The idea is arresting enough, but when filtered through Cave’s knack for disorientating horror, it becomes something new entirely. These are the opening lines:

I had a Dream, Joe - you were standing

In the middle of an open road.

I had a Dream, Joe - your hands were raised up to the sky

And your mouth was covered in foam.

I had a Dream, Joe - a shadowy Jesus,

He flitted from a-tree to tree.

I had a Dream, Joe - a society of whores

Stuck needles in an image of me.

I had a Dream, Joe - it was autumn-time

And thickly fell the leaves.

And in that Dream, Joe, a pimp in a seersucker suit

Sucked a toothpick, and pointed his finger at me!

Now, that’s the way to start a song. The open road, the mad raving, the unnerving presence of a witch-like Christ and the dramatic gesture at the climax all combine to paint a lurid scar across your imagination. Echoes of Martin Luther King in the phrasing, too. This is not your average pop record.

As soon as I could, I got my hands on the album.

The cover of Henry's Dream is a painting of an orange-red sky behind a billboard. The billboard features the album’s title and an image of Mr Cave in mid-West preacher get-up. He wears his thumbs on his lapels and a brooding expression.

The picture transports you to a fictionalised version of America's dustbowl. You are drifting into someone else’s mental landscape, looking up at a sign which can be read as as a statement of authority and a warning.

The journey begins with Papa Won’t Leave You Henry - sample lyric:

I entered through, the curtain hissed

Into the house with its blood-red bowels

Where wet-lipped women with greasy fists

Crawled the ceilings and the walls

and ends with Jack the Ripper - sample lyric:

I got a woman - she strikes me down with a fist of leadI got a woman - she strikes me down with a fist of leadWe bed in a bucket of butcher's knivesI awake with a hatchet hanging over my head

in between we get love-in-the-time-of-the-apocalypse courtesy of Straight to You - sample lyric:

Gone are the days of rainbowsGone are the nights of swinging from the starsFor the sea will swallow up the mountainsAnd the sky will throw thunderbolts and sparksStraight at you, but I'll come a-runningStraight to you, but I'll come a-runningOne more time...an outsider love story - The Loom of the Land - sample lyric:It was the dirty end of winterAlong the loom of the landAnd I walked with sweet SallyHand upon handAnd the wind it bit bitter For a boy of no meansWith no shoes on his feetAnd a knife in his jeansthe song of a self-pitying as yet un-caught murderer - When I First Came to Town - sample lyric:Suspicion and dark murmurs surround meEverywhere I go, they confound meAs though the blood on my hands is thereFor every citizen, here to seeand the best drinking song ever - O Brother, My Cup is Empty - sample lyric:I've been sliding down on rainbowsI've been swinging from the starsNow this wretch in beggar's clothingBangs his cup across the barsLook, this cup of mine is empty!Seems I've misplaced my desiresSeems I'm sweeping up the ashesOf all my former firesSo brother, be a brotherAnd fill this tiny cup of mineAnd please, sir, make it whiskeyI have no head for wineThe only duff track is Christina the Astonishing, about a 12th Century saint, which is performed almost as plainsong.The rest of the album is outstanding. It features an interchangeable cast of murderers, drunks and lowlifes - overlapping lyrical obsessions and imagery delivered with deranged passion. The Bad Seeds' sound around this time was described as an unholy racket. It is.I cannot recommend this record highly enough. A shame the person who wrote it disagrees.*********************Other top ten albums added so far:

The Boatmans Call and Let Love In...they are my favourites. Dark, beautiful, witty. Though I have to admit I bloody love Dig, Lazarus, Dig....anyway... Nick Cave took me a bit of time to get into, but now I'm there he is incredible. Never seen him live, would love to have the chance of seeing the tall blighter perform.

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This is my blog - a mishmash of things which includes a lot of material about the Post Office Horizon story. If you want to have a look at my presenter website, with my TV and radio credits it's here. If you want to do some public speaking training with me, find out how here. My vlog is on youtube.